In Luke 10:25- 37, when the expert in the Law asks Jesus who his neighbor is, what is he really asking Jesus? I believe that the expert of the Law was asking a loaded question. I do not think that he was really interested in identifying who his neighbor was, but wanted to know who he could ignore and get away with it. Many times questions like this are asked to justify what a person is already doing.
When Jesus suggests through the Parable of the Good Samaritan that it was the Samaritan who acted as a neighbor to the half dead man, how does this answer the earlier question of the expert in the Law? Jesus turns the focus back to motive and action. Being a neighbor to someone is not a passive thing. It requires action. A Neighbor is not just a person who lives next door to you. He wanted to highlight the fact that a true neighbor would put the needs of another above his own. The Samaritan went against tradition and custom to help someone in need. Would we do the same? Jesus wanted to people to think about how we act toward others on a daily basis.
What is the implication of Jesus’ answer for who we are to love and what love means in concrete terms? This has been something that church and believers have struggled with since this parable was spoken. We know what it means, but we do grasp how to put it into practice. In Love This, Andy Braner uses a great illustration to shed some light on how this might be lived out.
“Sometimes loving
your neighbor means reaching out to people of another generation—people much
older than you. Sometimes it involves providing physical care of companionship
for someone in the last chapter of life’s adventure.
The question is, how? How can you show genuine, heartfelt
love to someone you have nothing in common with? How can you initiate a
meaningful relationship with someone old enough to be your grandparent?
One of the
greatest gifts you can offer someone is a genuine interest in his or her life.
Many elderly people are especially grateful for the opportunity to pass on
their personal history. If you come equipped with a sense of curiosity, a
respectful attitude, and a listening ear, you have nothing to fear when it
comes to interacting with senior citizens. Work through your apprehension to
become someone who is interested in learning about people from previous
generations, someone who will tend to their needs, someone who will listen to
their stories and laugh at their jokes.
I met my wife in
college when her grandfather (Pappy) was still alive. I met Pappy for the first
time when he was 79 years old. I’ll never forget it. He shook my hand, looked
me in the eyes as only Pappy could do, and made me feel truly welcome—even
though I was just a punk college student dating his prized granddaughter.
Every time I
visited his house on Whippoorwill Hill, he would pour me a cup of coffee and
tell me the most outrageous stories I’d ever heard. I don’t know if they were
all true or not, but the man knew how to hold my attention. I remember sitting
at the foot of his old blue leather chair, listening for hours as he told about
all the history he’d lived. He told stories about the war, how he met Gram, the
old days of the camping business, and how he loved to build stuff. Every story
session always went back to some building he built back in the good old days.
With each visit I
was happy to learn about the past, but I wanted to learn more about the man
telling the story. I knew Pappy had graduated from USC with a degree in
engineering. I also knew he loved to construct buildings. So I went down to the
local hardware store and purchased a set of building plans for a garage-style
barn to be build beside my house.
I took the plans
straight to Pappy’s house. I knocked on the door, and he welcomed me in with
his usual warm smile. “Can I get you some coffee?” he asked. I walked in with
the plans under my arm. When we reached the kitchen table, I rolled them out.
“What are those for, Boy?” (He always called me “Boy”—not in a derogatory way
but as a term of endearment.) I asked if he would teach me how to build the
barn. His face immediately lit up, and he asked, “When do we start?”
For the next few
months we worked on the barn, and I learned a lot about the man his friends
called Spike. He was super funny. He was incredibly creative. And he didn’t
mind taking time out of his life to teach me a few things about building. He
showed me the power of patience, the value of precision, and the price for
making something nice. He helped me understand how to create foundations, how
to build walls, and how to measure for roofing structures. It was one of the
greatest times in my life.” (Braner, p. 114-118)
Are there any people or people groups in the immediate context of your church that some in your congregation do not thing of as “neighbors” in the manner of the parable? I do believe there is still an air of arrogance among white Christians. I believe this attitude is due to the mainstream marketing that has occurred within the American Church. If you look at the Bible Study Material, Book Covers, Websites, or other promotional material it depicts only white people. It is very rare to find promotional material that is culturally inclusive. I do not think that this is intentional. I just think that we do not know how to market to other cultures. Therefore, it seems that White Christians are only interested in reaching their own kind and are not interested in the rest of the world. That can appear to be arrogance if viewed by one looking from the outside. Also when White Christians talk about other churches, they feel the need to classify them by race rather than just another church within the Kingdom. For example, they talk with their friends and say, “Have you heard about what is going on at Salem Baptist Church”? You know that’s the Black Church on the corner.” Or they will classify a church as a “Hispanic Church” or an “Asian Church”. We are all one church. You do not hear people saying “Hey I visited First Baptist today. I really liked it. You know that’s the White Church on the corner.” Sometimes it seems as though we feel that we have cornered the market on what it means to be Christian just because we are white. We need to move past this arrogance and see all people as Jesus did. He had compassion for all. If we are going to be the church that God called us to be, we must humbly take His message of saving grace to all. The church as a whole does not think about the “The Third Church” because many people see that is being across the ocean. The do not see as it being right in their backyard. They say, “Reaching those people is the missionaries job.” Many do not realize the “Third Church” is right in their neighborhood. We must help our people grasp a Glocal Vision to reach “all” with the Gospel of Christ.
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